Unseen Academicals

Terry Pratchett, Stephen Briggs

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781783191949
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781783196937
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Football has come to the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork. And now the wizards of Unseen University must win a football match, without using magic, so they're in the mood for trying everything else. The prospect of the Big Match draws in a street urchin with a wonderful talent for kicking a tin can, a maker of jolly good pies, a dim but beautiful young woman, who might just turn out to be the greatest fashion model there has ever been, and the mysterious Mr Nutt (and no one knows anything much about Mr Nutt, not even Mr Nutt, which worries him, too). As the match approaches, four lives are entangled and changed forever.

Because the thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football. Here we go! Here we go! Here we go!

ACT ONE

SCENE ONE

A bare stage. A room in UU. SACHARISSA CRIPSLOCK enters.

SACHARISSA: Hello. Sacharissa Cripslock. Ankh-Morpork Times. Technically, the city of Ankh-Morpork is a Tyranny, which is not always the same thing as a monarchy, and in fact even the post of Tyrant has been somewhat redefined by the incumbent, Lord Vetinari, as the only form of democracy which works. Everyone is entitled to vote, unless disqualified by reason of age or not being Lord Vetinari.

And yet it does work. This has annoyed a number of people who feel, somehow, that it should not, and who want a monarch instead, thus replacing a man who had achieved his position by cunning, a deep understanding of the realities of the human psyche, breathtaking diplomacy, a certain prowess with the stiletto dagger, and, all agreed, a mind like a finely balanced circular saw, with a man who had got there by being born. A third proposition, that the city be governed by a freely-elected choice of respectable members of the community who would promise not to give themselves airs or betray the public trust at every turn was instantly the subject of music-hall jokes all over the city.

It’s two o’clock in the morning. We’re in Unseen University – the Discworld’s premier college of wizardry. Actually, the multiverse’s premier college of wizardry. Despite the hour, a long-standing tradition is being followed…

A wizard, with a duck tied to his head, runs through the stage. With more cries, a crowd of wizards charge on, robes flapping, and waving odd items maybe a frying pan, a hunting horn, whatever you want that is ‘Discworld’. They charge across the stage and exit, whooping.

They are the finest minds in the world, let me tell you.

Finest minds. Engaged in the business of the universe. Finest minds!

She exits. A moment, and the wizards enter, breathless.

RIDCULLY: Well, that was fun! We must do it again sometime.

STIBBONS: Yes, sir. We will. In one hundred years.

INDEFINITE STUDIES: What is a Megapode, anyway?

RIDCULLY: (Dismissively.) Type of bird, I believe.

STIBBONS: The original Megapode was found in the under-butler’s pantry. It escaped in the middle of dinner and caused what my predecessor eleven hundred years ago called… (Referring to a book.) ‘a veritable heyhoe-rumbelow as all the Fellows pursued it through the college buildings with much mirth and good spirits.’

HIX: Why?

RIDCULLY: Oh, you can’t have a Megapode running around loose, Dr Hix. Anyone’ll tell you that.

HIX: No, I meant why do we do it again every hundred years?

INDEFINITE STUDIES: It’s a tradition. We have to have traditions.

LIBRARIAN: Ook.

SENIOR WRANGLER: Yes, quite right – should be getting our traditional drink about now. And…perhaps that new girl – Juliet – might bring it bring it up? She ought to get used to the Uncommon Room.

The wizards look wistful and start to drift off.

STIBBONS: (Who hasn’t noticed.) You may be interested to know, gentlemen that tonight’s was the longest chase ever recorded in the history of… Er…gentlemen?

They have all left. STIBBONS follows.

SACHARISSA: It is a well-known fact in any organisation that, if you want a job done, you should give it to someone who is already very busy; In UU, Ponder Stibbons was that busy man.

JULIET enters. GLENDA enters and intercepts her.

GLENDA: Juliet! Where have you been?

JULIET: Went to the football, didn’t I. You know we were playing those buggers in Dimwell.

GLENDA: Until one in the morning?

JULIET: That’s the rules, init? Play until full time, first dead man or first score.

GLENDA: Who won?

JULIET: Dunno.

GLENDA: You don’t know?

JULIET: When we left it was being decided on head wounds.
I went with Rotten Johnny.

GLENDA: Rotten Johnny? You shouldn’t have gone. Just go and do the washing-up will you?

JULIET exits.

SACHARISSA: Glenda likes Juliet, she really does, although sometimes she wonders why. Of course, they’d grown up together, but it had always amazed her that Juliet, could be so…dumb about everything.

In fact it was Glenda who had had grown up. She wasn’t sure about Juliet; sometimes it seemed to Glenda that she had done the growing up for both of them.

GLENDA: Rotten Johnny. Ye gods, he smells of cat wee! He’s the only boy stupid enough to think he’s got a chance. Good grief, she’s got a figure like that and all she ever dates are total knobheads! What would she do without me?

GLENDA exits.

RIDCULLY & PONDER enter. PONDER is referring to the Big Book of Traditions.

RIDCULLY: What do you mean, Stibbons, there’s a tradition we don’t do? Does that matter?

STIBBONS: It is traditional, Archchancellor. Although one could argue that not observing it has now, alas, become the tradition.

RIDCULLY: Well, that’s fine, isn’t it? If we can make a tradition of not observing another tradition, then that’s doubly traditional, eh? What’s the problem?

STIBBONS: It’s Archchancellor Bigger’s Bequest.
The university does very well out of the Bigger estates.
They were a very rich family.

RIDCULLY: Name rings a faint bell. Decent of him. So?

STIBBONS: There is a condition attached to the bequest. It’s in the small print, sir. It says (He reads.) ‘…and thys bequest shall continue as long as the University shall enter a team in the game of foot-the-ball or Poore Boys’ Funne.’

RIDCULLY: That’s ridiculous!

STIBBONS: Ridiculous or not, Archchancellor, that is the condition of the bequest.

RIDCULLY: But we stopped taking part in that years ago. Mobs in the streets, kicking and punching and yelling…and the spectators were nearly as bad! There were hundreds of men in a team! A game could go on for days! That’s why it was stopped.

STIBBONS: Actually, it has never been stopped as such. We stopped, yes, and so did the guilds. It was no longer a game for gentlemen. Nevertheless, such are the terms. There are all sorts of other conditions. Oh dear. Oh, surely not…

RIDCULLY: What?

STIBBONS: I think I’d like to check a few things… I would not wish to worry you unduly.

RIDCULLY: WHAT???

STIBBONS: Well, it looks as though…no, it would be unfair to spoil your evening, Archchancellor. I must be reading this wrongly…

RI...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Act One
• Act Two